Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-12-30
CHRIST'S BIRTH.
The Story Of the Nativity Told by
Rev. 7. Dewitt TaImage--The
Advent of the Redeemer of
Mankind on Earth.
HeW Childhood and Motherhood Were
H0nored; the Cradle Made to Mean
More Than the Grave.
How the Child OF To Day is to Settle all
Destinies and Usher In tho Worlds
Salvation or Destruction.

s'THE BARN AND IT'S SURROUNDINGS"
| Special to the Gazette.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, Dec. 25.-Services
to-day at the Brooklyn Tabernacle were
jubilant. Professors Browne and Ali,
with organ and cornet, We're unusually
powerful, and Mrs. Florence Rice-Knox
sang three solos. The thousands of peo-
| pie who packed the church and all the
approaches, seemed to join in the great
chorus:
He ehall reign from pole to pole
With i'limitable sway;
! lie ehall reign, when, like scroll,
YOnder heavens have passed away.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., took
as the subject OF his sermon. "The Barn
and Its Surroundings" His text was
taken from Luke II. Is: "The shepherds
said one to another, let US now go even
unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which
| is come to pass" DR.. Talmage said:
One thousand years of the worlds ex-
istence rolled painfully and YEARLY
along, and no Christ. Two thousand
years, and no Christ. Three thousand
years, and no Christ. Four thousand
years, and no Christ. "Give US q
Christ" had cried Assyrian and Persian
and Chaldean and Egyptian civilizations,
but the lips of the earth and the lips of
the sky made no answer. The world had
already been sffiuent of genius. Among
poets had appeared Homer and Thespis
and Aristophanes and SophocIes and Eu-
ripides and Alexis Kschylus, yet no
Christ to be the most poetic figure of the
centuries. Among historians had ap-
peared Herodotus and Xenophon and
Thucydides, but no Christ from whom all
history was to date backward and for
Ward-B. G. and A. D. Among conquer
ors Csmillus and Manlius and Regulus
and Xantippus and Hannibal and Scipio
and Pompey and Caesar, yet no Christ
who was TO be the copqueror of earth and
heaven.
But the slow century and the slow year
and the slow month and the slow hour at
last arrived. The world had had mathis
or concerts in the morning and vespers
or concerts in the evening, bnt now it is
to have concert at midnight. The black
window shutters of q December night
were thrown open, and some of the best
singers of world where they all sing
stood there, and putting back the drapery
| of cloud chsnted q peace anthem, until
all the echoes of hill and valley applauded
and encored the Halielujsh chorus.
| At last the world has Christ and just
| the Christ it needs. Come, let US 60 into
| that Christmas scene as th9ugh we had
never before worshipped at the manger.
Here is q Madonna worth looking at. l
wonder not that the most frequent name
in all lands and in ali Christian centuries
is Mary. And there are Marys in palaces
and Marys in cabins, and though German
and French and italian and Spanish and
English pronounce it differently, they are
all
NAMESAKES CT THE ONE
whom we find On 8 bed of straw with her
pale face against the soft cheek of Christ
in the night of the Nativity ALI the great
painters have tried on canvas to present
Mary snd her child and the incidents of
that most famous night of the worlds
history. Raphael in three different mas
terpie ces, celebrated them. Tintoret and
Guirlandlo surpassed themselves
in the Alteration of the Msgi..
Corregio needed to do nothing
more than his Madonna to become I'M
mortal. The Madonna of the Lily, by
Leonardo da Yinci, will kindle the admir-
alton of all ages. Murillo never won
greater triumph By his pencil than IN his
the galleries of Dresden are forgotten
when 1 think of the small room of that
gallery containing the Sistine Madonna.
Yet all of them were copies of ST.
Matthew's MaGonns, and Luke's Ma
donna, the inspired Madonna of the Old
Book, which we had put into our hands
when we were infants and that we hope
to have under our heads when we die.
Rahn1d in tha fret y,isco hot ON
frs night of Christ's life God honored
the brkte creation. You cannot get into
that Bethlehem barn without going past
the camels, the mules, the dogs, the oxen.
The brutes of that stable heard the first
cry of the infant Lord. Some of the old
painters represent the oxen and camels
kneeling that night before the newborn
babe. And well might they kneel. Have
you ever thought that Christ came, among
other things, to alleviate the sufferings of
the brute creation? Was IT not appropri-
ate that he should during the first few
days and nights of His life on earth be
surrounded by the dumb beasts whose
moan and plant and believing have for
ages been
PRAYER TO GOD
for the arresting of their fortunes and the
Fighting OF their wrongs? It did not
merely "happen so"that the unintelligent
creatures Of God should have been this.
night in close neighborhood. Not &
kennel In all the centuries, not birds
nest, not WORKOUT horse On towpath,
not herd freezing in the poorly built
coW-pen, not freight car in summer
time bringing the beeves to market with
out water through thousand miles of
agony, not surgeons room witnessing
the struggles of fox or rabbit or pigeon
or dog in the horrors Of vivisection, but
has au interest In the fact that Christ
was born in q stable surrounded by
brutes. He remembered that night, and
the prayer He heard in their pitiful moan
He will answer in the punishment Of
those who maltrcat the dumb brutes. |
They surely have as much right in this |
world as we have.
In the first chapter of Genesis you may
see that they were placed on the |
earth before man was, the fish and |
fowl created the fifth day, and the
suadruped the morning of the sixth day,
and man not until the afternoon of that |
day. The whale, the eagle, the lion, end |
all the lesser creatures of their kind were |
predecessors of the human family. They |
have the world by right of possession. |
They have also paid rent for the places
they occupied. What an army of defense |
all over the land are the faithful watch |
dogs. And who can tell what the world |
owes to horse, and camel, and OK for |
TRANSPORTATION? And robin And lark have